Are Junior Devs Really Trying or Just Coasting?

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Hey folks, we're doing a double whammy today. Um, I'm almost at the office, so this will be a quick one, I guess. Uh, the topic is from experienced dev subreddit. And really, this person was saying like this is going to sound kind of funny, but the like, hey, like as a more senior developer, how do we tell the the junior developers that are trying from like the ones that don't give a right? um like are there ones that are struggling to learn and they care versus ones that are just like they're just lazy kind of thing and um this is a bit of a touchy subject I think I think um as an engineering manager I've kind of seen it from both sides where I've seen more junior developers kind of struggle I've seen more senior developers struggling to help juniors um and like it's uh It's really tricky.

Um, but I I do think that at the end of the day, like, you know, trying to think like the meta point in this short video that I want to have is like I I think it's pretty rare that people are being malicious. When it comes to being lazy, I think that you observe lazy, but it's not people's like natural mode. That's my belief. I think that when you observe people being lazy, it's actually because they they're not set up to be effective. Okay, so I'm going to start with that and then try to get into things and uh we'll see how far we get. Um the the couple of angles here, right, just to kind of reiterate are that you'll have junior developers that are getting onboarded, right? A lot of them uh are, you know, very, it might be their first job they've ever had.

And I mean ever. I don't just mean like first developer job. It literally might be their first job. Uh for others, you know, maybe they're coming from university. They've been doing school projects. This is their first time in the workplace, but it's a for a lot of them, it's a very different environment than they're used to. And Oh, buddy. Get in here. Let's go. um they uh that that that might be a big like adjustment for them. And one of the people that was uh leaving a comment in this thread like they they wrote they did a big write up and I I really appreciate it, but they're like, "Hey, like I was one of these people that you're kind of talking about like uh and and they kind of wrote up saying like, you know, I was feel like I was kind of tossed into the deep end the first place I was working and was trying to elaborate on that." And it's uh it's interesting, right?

I think like when people feel like they're unable to like be effective, some people naturally will reach out, ask for help, like it's it's so uncomfortable for them to be like that, but they know or they feel more comfortable at least asking for help, engaging and whatever. I do think that this is more rare and I don't know if it's specific to software developers, but I do think that it's more rare for people to be like this, at least in my experience with onboarding people. I think it's a lot more common that when you have people getting onboarded, if they feel overwhelmed or a little bit lost, it is much more natural for them to go, I guess I'm screwed. Right? it's crappy and I don't ever want people to feel like that. But then they're like, I don't want to reach out and bother people.

And you can tell them a million times like, hey, we're all here to help. You know, they they get they get uncomfortable doing it. Uh it only takes one person to like not be having a great day or whatever, to message something in a way that makes it feel like um they're too busy to help. Now this person never wants to ask for help again. Like it's a very touchy kind of thing. And I think for some of you listening to this, look, I get it because the first thing you might want to say is like, that's man. Like, they got to try harder. They got to put in effort. And all I have to say is like, shut the hell up. Like, they got to start somewhere. And unfortunately, it's not trivial for everyone. So, you can either be part of the problem and be an to all of them and just assume that everyone's a lazy piece of crap, or you can realize that everyone's individual.

And if you think that that's too fluffy and you don't like it, you can probably, I don't know, turn off the video, go to a different channel. I don't care. But I think if you're willing to listen for a moment, I think it's a lot more common, like I said, that people feel a little bit lost and they're just not sure how to effectively unblock themselves. The lip service that we give when we say, "Hey, just reach out for help. I'm happy to help. Like, you're never bothering me." It's uh, you know, actions speak louder than words. Unfortunately, you can tell people a million times, and I've said this in previous videos, it might feel like it's a ton of extra work. Reach out to them. Do not just wait for them to ask for help. If you demonstrate to them, hey, look, I'm reaching out to you to check in and make sure things are good.

Like, I think that demonstrates significantly more uh realistically to them that that you mean it genuinely versus just saying it. You're proving it to them by spending time asking, right? And that doesn't need to be like a tell me your status, right? It's not that's not the goal. The goal is to be like, "Hey, look, I'm I'm willing to spend time making sure that you're you're doing okay." Next thing that I want to touch on is that uh engagement's a big part of it. Um I think that some people get dropped into stuff and like if we think about this, not everyone loves every moment of work, right? Some people are in the groove of doing what they're doing. They're like, "Hey, like work's work. It's a paycheck. I don't I don't hate it. It's not my most favorite thing. Like, I'd rather go home and play video games or I'd rather go home and play a sport or spend time with my family or whatever.

Like, makes sense. But they're like, I don't hate it. And I think that for some people that can't even get started on the work yet, they don't even know, like, they haven't even gotten to that point where they're like, okay, like I can at least get into some of this. And we have to kind of give them some of that momentum in the beginning. You may not like that. You may not want to be part of helping with that. But I feel very confident in saying that like if you get people engaged in the work they're doing and you can at least get them feeling like they're doing something meaningful and they can contribute, I am very confident you'll see a lot less like lazy people because I don't think that that's a natural thing. Right? If you think about people that are just lazy, they seem lazy.

You're probably thinking, "Oh, they're doing something else. They're not doing work. They're screwing off to do something else." Yeah, they're doing something else, something that's more engaging to them. Like that's what's happening. So, like, how do you get people engaged in the work? And again, it doesn't mean that they have to love everything they're doing and it's the most fascinating thing in the world. But I think for many software developers, they want to feel like they're solving problems, that they're contributing, that they're doing meaningful work. So if you're onboarding people and they cannot feel that way, I think that you want to look at your onboarding processes and you want to think about what you're doing, what your team is doing to get people to that point. You may not feel like that's your responsibility. But I think that you're just going to continue to be disappointed when you're like, why does this person seem lazy?

It's not. It's just like more human nature to like gravitate towards things that are more engaging. And if you're not enabling them to be successful, it's going to happen. Again, you may say, well, like, hey, they want to get paid. Like, sure, I bet you they're not sitting there going like, I can't wait to do no work today. Because I think a lot of these people that get into this situation where they're like, oh man, like I I'm actually not doing a lot, right? Some of the people in the comments were like, "Oh, you'll see it in like, you know, standup meetings. They're not doing anything. There's no progress being made." Do you think that person isn't thinking about the standup where they're like, "I have to go tell the team I've had no progress again." At some point, they're probably their pants going like, "Oh my god, like this is day this is day eight.

I have to tell the team like still no progress." like so like what what do we do as a team to make it better for them so that they're not like completely blocked like they're not supported in that regard you like like I said you may be telling them reach out who's reaching out to them to check in for help not your not your responsibility to do that okay I mean not my responsibility to uh improve your team culture either but I'm trying like it's uh I think it's it's not a lot of effort has to go into it to make it better. I'm not saying it fixes it. I'm not saying that every single person is like this, but I do think an overwhelming majority of this kind of thing can be addressed this way. You will still find people that are there's always some amount of people trying to game the system or whatever.

Right? This is what I don't like using always and never because it only takes one example, someone watching this video to go, I know one person that did this and they were absolutely like, you know, taking advantage of things and like I hear you. I'm not saying it's impossible. I'm just saying like I don't think that the majority of people you encounter are the ones doing this. I think that we've not set them up for success. I do have other I'm just parking. Sorry. I do have other videos that talk about like when it comes to teaching and like how to help people problem solve, that kind of thing. Um there's other videos on this channel. There's other stuff on my main channel, Dev Leader. uh stuff I publish. If you want more information about that, just ask in the comments. I'll make more videos on it.

But if you're like, okay, like I'm doing these things, but the people aren't they're not learning. Right. Good enough. Uh they're not learning. Like what do we got to do better? There's lots of strategies for that, but I think number one, you want to make sure that people feel like they can be productive. You will absolutely see engagement tank. People will appear to be lazy if they're like, "I don't know how to start making more forward progress." Thanks for watching. See you next time.